Interesting things to consider, then i'll shut up...
1.) if you actually read the 2nd amendment it says that the right to bear arms was originally meant to help support the militia (seriously. look it up). The militia no longer exists, therefore the right no longer has the meaning it once did.
2.) If you read the bill currently being passed through congress, the explicitly state that the will not be "grandfathering" the legislation. That is to say that they will not take away your guns if you already have them, as they cannot hold you legally accountable for something that was not illegal when you did it. however, I imagine it would become quite difficult for you to get ammo.
3.) NO right is without limitations. "what about my 1st amendment rights? free speech?" Try any of these things: buy CP, post on the internet about assassinating a political figure, shout "fire" in a theater. In a likewise manner, there's already gun bans in place similar to the AR ban. Tompson sub machine gun. banned. try buying an RPG. banned. things are banned to prevent hysteria and mass human casualty in one way or another. If it can be proven that ARs are a public threat in the same way as the Tompson, than it will be banned just as the Tompson was.

Note that I am not expressing an opinion, simply stating what I know. what you make of it is your own decision. i shall take my red/greens as they come.

Here's the rest of that: We were to have a militia NOT a large army. The founding fathers hated large military forces (viewed them as forces of oppression. see Britain, Spain, and France of the Era), and under their ideals it would JUST be a militia.

War? every man between 16 and 65 would pick up their own guns and go to war. During the civil war, they discovered this was a terrible idea when people brought handmade guns to the battlefield and it was extremely inefficient to provide custom ammunition. from then on, no militia. The remnants of it is known as the coast guard.

"The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."-Thomas Jefferson The 2nd amendment was not intended to forge an army to repel an invader it was intended to keep the enemy with-in in check. The potential tyranny of large centralized government.

When the counrty was founded without a standing army. An ammendment was put into the constitution saying that an armed militia would be needed for security. You don't think that these two facts are somehow related?

They are somewhat but when James Madison wrote in the "well-regulated militia being necessary for a free state" (emphasis on free) he was specifically thinking of sowing the seeds of revolution if the need should ever arrive."Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."- James Madison

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

When I see a country founded without a military and the phrase "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state", I see that as being used for protection from outside attackers and internal peacekeeping because you don't have a military that would do that for you. You emphasize "free" (and leave out "security") interpreting the "free" to be a result of the armed militia, while I interpret it as the reason for needing a militia because many of the founding fathers saw a standing army as being an instrument of tyranny.

You're focusing on it being exclusively on the enemy with-out and not what we're talking about by the attempted infringement of the second amendment which is the enemy with-in. The militia is still an incredible deterrent to an outside invader.Arthur Wellesley said it best when advising King George III "To invade the United States would be folly, there will be gun behind every blade of grass" (Isoroku Yamamoto is often falsely credited with this quote) Also the definition of regulated has changed since it was written in the Constitution you're interpreting it as to control or limit. When if fact when it was written it mean't "well trained". That is the only argument that can be made as far as trying legislate the 2nd amendment and no one seems to go there. I've taken those steps by becoming a member the Civilian Marksmenship Program and have shot competitively since i was about 14 years old. And literally millions of other people have taken this route as well. I wouldn't mind seeing that as a requirement to owning a rifle. If it was simply that you join the CMP when you're of school age you go through small arms firing school and tada you now have a "well regulated" militiamen.

I am not even American, and I can agree with this. It is in place to prevent the emerging of a corrupt government that want to control people's lives, or any other form of tyranny. It means that people have the rights and means to take back control from the government, if it ever goes too far, becomes corrupt or tyrannise the people.

The people should never fear the government, the government should fear the people.

People don't need a legal right to overthrow a tyrannical government, it is just something that you do. It is not like people in North Korea are going "well I would like to overthrow Kim Jung Un, but since I don't have a legal right to, I guess I can't".

the second amendment has much more purpose than just "militia" it is literally the difference between us and North Korea, if we didn't have guns, the government can do whatever they please whenever they please it is a fact that power leads to corruption, and I think being the only person with a gun is pure power. Hitler Stalin and Mao all did the same thing and look what happened to them. It is proven that owning a gun will lower all forms of violence, example, if you knew nearly everyone had a concealed handgun on them at the dollar store, i can guarantee you wouldn't try and rob it. What pisses me off the most is people want teachers to be able to conceal a gun with them at school, meanwhile Obama and the rest of the liberals say no even though they all have armed guards with them at their children's private schools 24/7, so regardless of if having a gun at school is ok or not, our president is still a hypocrite

Yeah, of course. The thing keeping the government – who have the most powerful army in the world featuring missiles, stealth jets, tanks, and drones – from doing whatever they want is the handguns and rifles of a fraction of the population. Right...

There are enough privately owned firearms in the US to arm nearly every man women and child in the country. Not to mention if it did come to civil war soldiers would not be likely to stand with their government if it was indeed corrupt enough to get people up in arms over it.

Every time I see this argument in reply to the "government takeover" argument, I feel sorta bad for the person that posts it. You think that if that does happen that we should just give up? **** that, if anyone decides to pull that **** I'm not just going to go quietly. Besides, those numbers all come from mass shooting with one shooter each, so it's not like there are 323 crazy people out there with a semi auto rifle, it's about 7, and in any case, a concealed carry would have solved the problem. Think about that guy that sliced up the campus. They all just ran like, "Oh noes, I don't wanna get cut by that guy with a knife that can only hit me if I'm within 5 feet of him." There were a few that tackled him, but one shot to the leg would have dissolved the situation instantly. Now what if a gang forms up near where I live and 15 of the bastards try busting down my door. AR behind the tv stand says no thanks, and my **** doesn't get stolen. If they come to take my **** or kill me, they don't really deserve to live anyway, if all they do is cause people the live in fear.
Oh noes, my thumbs.

I see your point in the use of weapons as a self-defense, but I do believe that this self-defense only makes sense if its from other civilians. A lot of the time I like to see it as, if everyone has a gun, then everyone is safe; and if no one has a gun, then everyone is safe, but if some have a gun and some don't then there is a dangerous unbalance. The argument i was trying to express above was more of "if the government WANTED to 'takeover' the civilians, they would've done so already, and they would be successful (disregarding possible foreign intervention) with our without armed civilians". Now, regarding to the fact that, as you stated, its a very small percentage of people doing the damage, not the rest of the gun owning population, its an issue with no easy fix. On one hand you could try to enforce background checks and stuff like that, but often the weapons used are either (1) owned by a relative/someone else, or (2) acquired through illicit trade, causing background checks to be pointless.